Friday, 11 October 2013

Response to Shadid Lewis: Does Romans 1 teach the death penalty?

It was recently brought to my attention that Shadid Lewis made a claim that Paul taught Romans 1 the death penalty. If my memory serves me correctly, Shadid made the claim the death penalty is something that needs to be carried out. What's amazing to me is that Shadid will chastise those who say that Surah 9:29 tells you to kill the unbelievers and say "Let's look at the historical context". Yet, he'll pick on ONE verse that Paul said and abuse that text rather than let it speak for itself.Let's look at Romans 1:24-32 in context. "24 Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. 25 They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.26 Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. 27 In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.28 Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done. 29 They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; 31 they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy. 32 Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them."
We see in the passages on screen that Paul is speaking of the state of unregenerate man before God.

We see also, that human beings know in their heart of hearts that God exists, he has written his existance into their conscience and they know that he is there, but refuse to acknowledge it. As a result of their unwillingness to turn from their iniquity and this ties in with the Old Testament with how God treated the Israelites when they rebelled against him in the Nev'im or the Prophets. He handed them over to their sinful desires because of their stubborn refusal to repent and of course, he will treat unrepentant Christians in exactly the same manner.

Furthermore, Some specific sins are listed, including "men commiting indecent acts with other men and women with women" which is not simply talking sexual acts connected with idols but it lists homosexuality and other sins as well.

Paul is not advocating the death penalty, Christ took that away when he died upon the cross, after all, he is the telos or goal that the law was pointing to. When Paul is speaking of those who deserve death, he is not saying that they are to be put to death by Christians, he is saying they are doing evil in the sight of God that indeed is worthy of death, but the context doesn't suggest that a Christian, a follower of Jesus, should ever consider putting someone to death. There is nothing in the New Testament however that stops secular governments using the death penalty on criminals, but there is no licence in the New Testament for Christians to carry this out themselves.

Although there have been "Christian" governments who have done this, They did it contrary to the New Testament teaching. In fact, The idea of a state church is not even what the apostles had in mind, let alone a death penalty carried out by Christians. I am aware that certain sins warranted death in the Old Testament, but this was part of the Old Covenant which has been fulfilled in Christ, thus need not be carried out.

Thus it has been clearly demonstrated that Shadid and others like him have no shame in twisting Paul's letter to their destruction just as the others are twisted too.

About Me

I am a young apologist and a Gentile. A Christian. I seek to demonstrate the truth of Jesus Christ to the Rabbinic Jews for them to consider the belief in him, respond to objections and strengthen believers to defend Jesus biblically from the scriptures.
You can contact me on Paltalk by the following nics:
bobo577 and Answering Judaism.
If you wish to discuss something, I am happy to talk with you on Paltalk. The Answering Judaism nic I mostly use nowadays so that one you'll probably receive a reply from.
If you give me a question and don't have an immediate answer, it may be an issue I need to look into.